Watch Man...
I found your post interesting. Your comment that many of the students were lacking 'much of the background knowledge that we previously expected the candidate to know through their interest in aviation' is flawed. The Military Course has always been based on the premis that it will be assumed that students have no background knowledge and will be trained to a suitable standard to continue live training in the field. I also question why you expect a new entrant to know the difference between a spitfire and hurricane - do you also experct them to know the difference betwwen an AR1 and AR15 ?
Having been involved in live training for many years, I wonder if some of the perception that the standard of student is dropping is a trainers perception, and the standard has not dropped as much (if at all) as believed. As trainers get more experienced, or have been longer in a particular field of training (i.e. towards the end of your 4 year stint at CATCS), then their expectations of a new student often (unfairly) rise. I'm not knocking you when I say this, or questioning your professionalism, but its a fact thats been commented on many times.
Do you have any stats that show that the number of new (i.e. not ex-assistant) students who pass the course first time are falling which would back up your comments ?